European PS3 Launch Delayed to 2007

An anonymous reader writes "Sony has finally admitted that the November release date for the release of the PS3 is unfeasible. Specifically, it will not be available in any PAL territories until March 2007. Sony cites '(a) delay in the mass production schedule of the blue laser diode', forming a critical part of the much-maligned Blu-Ray drive. With the Xbox 360 having been released for almost 6 months in overseas markets, and the Wii looming large, can Sony afford a delay like this?" Update: 09/06 17:58 GMT by Z : Just to make sure you caught it, the announcement includes the word that the U.S. will only be getting 400,000 units at launch in November, with Japan at 100,000 units. Go Sony.

Comments

What the heck is with Sony?

[AbRASiON]

I've got ask now, does anyone else feel that Sony are completely screwing up everything with the PS3?

No really, no troll, no Xbox fanboy'ery - seriously, what the hell is going on with Sony?

I've been following the news on these new consoles from the beggining, there's always been a fairly steady stream of rumours, proven to be true / false, comments, press releases etc, however one thing has stayed solid throughout, Sony keep having bad stuff to say.

There's the price, people speculated for ages, Sony prepared us for a high price with the "you should get a second job, because our console is so great" - the Sony fanboys responded with "they are using reverse psychology, it's going to be well priced, you'll see" (hell not just fanboys, game journalists said this too!) - then bam, 600$

Then they've got 2 units (sku's you Americans call them?) - why?! Don't copy Microsoft it was stupid of them too, it dilutes the market and makes it harder for developers to target a SINGLE stable platform, which is what console gaming and development is about! (idiots! both MS and Sony, bloody idiots!)

Then there's enforced blu-ray, which they may see as a bonus, we may or may not, depending where our loyalties lie.

Then there's the removal of rumble, then there's the loss of GTA4 as an exclusive, then there's delays to PAL regions, then there's rumours of less of them coming out at launch than suspected (it goes on!)
Then there's developer rumours "totally difficult to code for" then there's more rumours "isn't that much more powerful than 360" then there's screenshots pretty much showing it's really not that substantially better

Also the unit is quite a bit bigger than the X360!
The unit is using bluetooth, rumoured to have shitty latency for wireless controllers

On top of all the rumours and debates / speculation, every comment from Sony exec's seems like they are making it up as they go along, not really 100% solid on anything? - it sounds like a small nitpick but for goodness sakes I'm serious, I really am having trouble beleiving anything, some of the things they confirm / deny or speculate it can do seems like the person at the time is just thinking "that sounds good!" and the poor saps in engineering need to figure it out.

Case in point, E3 last year the "mock up" PS3 came with a boomerang controller, it had 2 HDMI out ports, it supported 7 controllers and had 3 network ports, it was capable of pretty much anything according to Sony.
At the time, I call them on it saying due to Microsoft surprisingly announcing the X360 much more complete than expected 1 week before E3, Sony panicked, pulled out a beta unit from the development cupboard, stuck a backplate on the empty plastic box and grabbed a beta controller to boot!
The back of the 2005 E3 model was a joke, it was like some dickhead manager was telling the illustrator designed, no no copy and paste, we want more of that port and more of this port, more ports! yeah! - 2/3 of them removed now, hummmmmmmm

You've also got Sony far less capable of making a decent unified online system like live as well (no, not an MS fanboy, see my post history, I'm just a cynic)

I do NOT WANT Microsoft running the gaming industry then nickel and diming us gamers with microtransactions and monthly / yearly fees, so I need Sony to do fairly well, but they are arrogantly riding on brand loyalty assuming they will be the best period, I feel they could be wrong.
(Yes, I'm also aware Sony would nickel and dime us like MS with microtransactions and fee's HOWEVER I firstly don't feel Sony would do it as aggressively and secondly with competition Sony can at least keep MS in check)

Either way the PS3 (in my opinion) thus far has been a shambles, a complete ballsup of epic proportions, I hope it does work out and I hope it does drop price, but at this rate who knows.

Re:What the heck is with Sony?

[lovebyte]

Maybe, just maybe, Sony has tried to innovate a bit too much? New type of processor, new type of disc drive, HD. I am pretty annoyed at Sony but compared to the Xbox360, the PS3 is much more innovative. Can't we expect delays then?
Anyway, like about everyone I know, I'll buy a Wii when it comes out and not a PS3, so this delay is not that relevant to me.

Re:What the heck is with Sony?

[thatguywhoiam]

What a load of cobblers, the feature they are discussing requires good software, it has NOTHING to do with the power of the processor in the PS3. It's these kind of marketing / pr bullshit spins which makes me take everything they say with a large serving of salt.

Actually you answered your own question. To down-rez, say, an HD movie, and stream it as H.264 or MPEG-4 over the air via WiFi to the PSP would require a hefty chunk of CPU, particularly the kind of DSP'ish CPU like the Cell.

As to your "WTF is with Sony lately" question...

The problem is that you have been tracking it. The consoles always launch this way. There's tons of doubletalk, trash-talk, overhype, you name it. And Sony being the undisputed 'winner' last-go-round of the consoles certainly puts them in the spotlight.

Sony has done a lot of dumb shit but I actually see them starting to turn around. They have a very radical CEO now (for Sony, anyways) but the corporation is a huge multiheaded hydra. It takes forever for big decisions to trickle down. (Not really cutting them slack here, but it is what it is.) For instance I noticed when they dropped ATRAC3, they did not replace it with another lame proprietary format. MiniDisc, retired (and it was very popular in the UK for a while, as well as pro audio field recording - hardly a failure. Ignorance to call it that.) The PSP does not play back any protected audio formats, only plain old AAC, MP3, unprotected WMA, WAV etc. All the Sony Ericsson phones I've used, same thing - no DRM. I bluetooth stuff happily back and forth with nary a complaint. So they do learn. We geeks have long memories.

Sony is not doing poorly financially, although they could be doing better, but to say they are 'in the red' is inaccurate:

Sony Computer Entertainment reported revenue of 122.5 billion yen ($1.06 billion), down from revenue of 172.8 billion yen ($1.5 billion) during Q1 2006. The division had an operating loss of 26.8 billion ($232.3m) compared to a lost of 5.9 billion yen ($51.1m) during the same quarter last year. This was largely due to lower PS2 and PSP hardware sales, as well as lower PS2 software sales. Sony shipped 2.54 million PS2s and 2.02 million PSPs during the quarter. PS2 software sales dropped to 33 million units, down from 35 million units while PSP software sales increased to 9.1 million units, up from 4.9 million units.

Now, I agree that they have seemingly made a number of tactical mistakes with the PS3; the price is off, the blu-ray is premature, and the bifurcation of the models is idiotic. But I have also watched Sony for a long time, and I know they actually perform best when their back is against the wall. You notice all the tribulations because a) you actually follow some of this and b) they have just finished a massive restructuring, right up to the CEO. So yeah, continue to beat on them, but it is foolish to write them off - its practically a zaibatsu, its not going anywhere. Personally I want to see them feel the heat from Nintendo and MS. If any one of them dominates, it has been proven over and over again that this is a bad thing for the industry, overall.

Re:Don't Worry About Sony

[AbRASiON]

I'm posting this on pure speculation as I've not investigated but AC I don't know if you're aware of this but apparently Sony is very much in the RED financially, they are betting the whole lot on the PS3 and blu-ray adoption.

There was even a large article recently on how Sony the entire corp NEEDS the PS3 to win or they are stuffed.
Assuming this is true, this means the PS3 doesn't just have to keep the gaming division up but the rest of Sony too.

The PS2 was an amazing success overall and it might be capable of that but it's dwindling now, what about the PS3, can it save Sony so they can get back on track? Who knows but based on what I've heard from them, I'm not touching that thing until it's at least PS3 revision 3 or 4 with some problems fixed and software released.

Sony does it again!

[laptop006]

The best part of this is that several retailers here in Australia have been advertising pre-orders for the PS3 (notably $big_chain_store) and some of them were aiming it as a possible Christmas present for the kids, this is REALLY going to piss off any parents who were dumb enough to do so (although a pre-order for an A$1000 console is pretty high up there as it is).

Re:It is their fault

[masklinn]

No, it's because games are starting to fill DVDs and as a game developer I can tell you we'll need a lot more space pretty soon.

The only things I see filling my PC games DVDs are huge-ass textures and buttloads of crappy useless cinematics & cutscenes.

If Oblivion didn't hit anywhere near the DVD storage limit, i don't see how anyone but Square-Enix and their "15 minutes of cinematics for each 5 minutes of game" can get above...